What You Need to Know About Our Latest CX Study

Every year, we release the Aspect Consumer Experience Index to study the ways in which customer experience is evolving, and what contact centers are doing to keep up. We’ve just released our latest findings, which you can see in full by clicking here.

But we also know how busy contact center leaders can be, so in the spirit of helping get you the facts that you need to know, we’ve compiled a list of five figures to guide your decision making throughout the rest of the year.

Let’s take a look below:

Self-service drives down interactions: Over the past two years, the percentage of consumers who have interacted with a contact center agent has declined from 71 percent, to 66 percent, to 64 percent last year. Consumers are reshaping customer service by looking for autonomous resolutions, only reaching out to live agents when that process has broken down.

Bad service is bad for business: A poor customer experience not only kills budding relationships, but it can even salt the earth. 54 percent of consumers stopped dealing with businesses as a result of poor customer service. Among Millennials, that figure rose to 61 percent—a clear indication that this trend is likely to become even more significant in the years to come.

Voice chat, the channel of the past: 59 percent of modern consumers prefer customer service that doesn’t involve talking. This is also especially true for Millennials, of which only 29 percent prefer voice contact. Rather, it will be the organizations that invest in chatbots, video, IVR and social media that rise to the top.

Still no substitute for the human touch: When interacting with a chatbot or intelligent assistant, 71 percent of consumers reported that they wanted the ability to connect with a live agent. So while smart assistants continue to get more use, there’s clearly a psychologically pleasing feeling just knowing that there’s someone behind the scenes ready and waiting to provide additional support.

Would you rather: Either today’s consumers really loathe the idea of reaching out for customer support, or they really love cleaning toilets. According to our research, 39 percent of respondents would rather scrub a toilet than reach out via IVR. When it comes to social media, 35 percent would take the toilet. Even when it came to our highest performing channel, in-person visits, 11 percent of consumers would still select scrubbing duty.

To learn more about the ways in which consumer expectations are changing, and what you can do to keep up with the times, click here.